TO GET DOWN FROM OUR APARTMENT to the street you have to go down a ladder overhanging from the top of the Empire State Building---

I--sick of the whole fucking thing and refuse to do it again but Jesse does it---A man had just tried it before her (going to work with evening paper in his pocket) and he quietly dropped off and fell to his death silently and unobtrusively---

It happens all the time---

But I go down the safe way which is not indicated in the dream and I'm down on the dark street strolling wondering if Jesse made it---Turn around and see her a block up strolling slowly on the other side of the street---

It seems Ma didnt make it and is dead but I dont believe it---(The same day Ma was scared coming down the attic ladder, dreams prevision in a strange tender way)---

Jesse is strolling sadly in the dark not knowing where I am any more

--Jack Kerouac

EDITOR'S NOTES

I posted this short dream because it's one of several Kerouac casually noted as predictive or telepathic (such as Then I Revisit Selma, the electric shaver dream (p.55-6 of Book of Dreams, 2001 ed.) and possibly Irene's Dream. )

--Chris Wayan

Source: pages 315-16 of Book of Dreams by Jack Kerouac, expanded (2001) edition, City Lights Books.
Date: estimated from sequence. P.305 is August 24 1957; p.324 is still '57.
Title: Kerouac always capitalized a dream's first phrase as a working title, even if it didn't fit the dream as a whole. Paragraph breaks added.

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